Откуда есть ВОДА ПИТЬ течет: об одной циркумбалтийской изоглоссе [Where Does Potable Water Flow From? On one Circum-Baltic Isogloss]
Anton Zimmerling
May 2024 

This paper discusses the origin of the Circum-Baltic modal construction with the nominative case-marking on the infinitival object: the same verbs assign the accusative case to their object in finite clauses. Independent infinitival clauses with the NOM-INF pattern express alethic (external) modality: either "p is necessary" or "p is possible", e.g. , the Old Russian example TOLIKO VODA(NOM) PITI (INF) conveys the meaning 'It is only possible to drink water there'. There are two main approaches towards the origin of this construction in Baltic and Slavic. The first approach is based on the reanalysis hypothesis: the nominative argument presumably originated as the subject of the archaic gerund-type Indo-European construction with the approximate meaning 'This water (NOM) is potable", while this archaic construction was inherited by the Baltic and Slavic languages from Proto-Indo-European. The second approach is based on the grammatical borrowing hypothesis: Baltic and Slavic languages presumably borrowed the construction with the nominative case-marking on the infinitival complements from the substratum Finno-Ugric languages. There are also attempts to reconcile these approaches by stipulating that later Finno-Ugric influence superimposed on the inherited Indo-European pattern. I argue that the grammatical borrowing hypothesis is more reliable.since the infinitival syntax in Baltic and Slavic languages is different. Slavic languages have a longer written period, while Baltic languages show a larger variety of infinitival patterns.follow the geographical and genre distribution of the NOM-INF construction in the non-bookish Russian texts from ca. 1100-1500 localized in the Great Novgorod, Pskov, and Polotsk-Smolensk areas and argue that two features in Old Russian syntax, which occasionally show up in the texts from this group-1) the "potable water" gerund-type construction with the secondary agreement and 2) the embedded NOM-INF structures after an overt modal verb or predicative-represent not the relics of the inherited Indo-European syntax but a borrowing from the neighbor Baltic dialects.

Format:	[ pdf ]
Reference:	lingbuzz/008115 (please use that when you cite this article)
Published in:	Балто-славянские исследования [Baltic-Slavic Studies], vol. XXI, 2021, 213 - 242
keywords:	nominative objects, differential object marking, areal linguistics, circum-baltic area, grammatical borrowings, infinitival clauses, external modality, diachrony, semantics, morphology, syntax
Downloaded:	538 times

 

[ edit this article | back to article list ]